Ike and the rhineland
Tue, 2008-07-08 16:31
#1
Ike and the rhineland
Tue, 2008-07-08 16:31
#2
It is said by some that Eisenhower is responsible for starving, large numbers of Germans in the Rhineland during the second world war. Is this true?
Tue, 2008-07-08 16:51
#3
Yup. They were given specific orders to do so and soldiers even shot and killed civilians trying to give food to POWs. Its estimated they starved and killed over a 1.5 million POWs. French, polish and americans did it, not the British and the russians used them for forced labour.
But then, as unionist puts it, war crimes are only war crimes if they happen to people you like.
Tue, 2008-07-08 17:09
#4
Got a cite for that claim?
I suspect that you are referring to "Other Losses" by Baque. [url=http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/b/bacque-james/ambrose-001.html]Here[/... is a review that blows those numbers out of the water.
[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: jrootham ]
Tue, 2008-07-08 19:29
#5
He had another work with documented examples and examples of written orders. Cant remember what it was called but was reading it in a bookstore the other day
eta it was Crimes and Mercies.
And Stephen Ambrose doesnt really blow anything (except his own hot air). Especially where he states "It is painful beyond description to have to set food priorities in a hungry world, but it had to be done, and who could argue with the decision? " which kind of says well we starvedthem but we had to. A nice similar defense by nazis got some of them hanged I believe.
[ 08 July 2008: Message edited by: Bacchus ]
Tue, 2008-07-08 19:32
#6
quote:
Originally posted by Bacchus:
[b]Yup. They were given specific orders to do so and soldiers even shot and killed civilians trying to give food to POWs. Its estimated they starved and killed over a 1.5 million POWs. French, polish and americans did it, not the British and the russians used them for forced labour.[/b]
Boo hoo hoo hoo. I hear they also bombed Hitler's bunker without even giving him a fair trial. Poor poor Germans. Are you sure it wasn't 15 million POWs? I think you're just understating the war crimes of those bad Allies. After all, all human life is sacred.
Pass me another tissue, please.
Tue, 2008-07-08 19:36
#7
I understand unionist. It isnt a war crime if it happens to people/countries you dont like.
So if I said it wasnt a war crime to eliminate the Roma or Jews, its because I dont like them and thus that makes it ok.
Like the executions of officers at Katyn (polish and jewish) which is ok right?
Tue, 2008-07-08 19:41
#8
quote:
Originally posted by Bacchus:
[b]I understand unionist. It isnt a war crime if it happens to people/countries you dont like.[/b]
If you have evidence of a war crime committed against the soldiers of the Nazi butcher regime, and it's keeping you awake at night after all these years, I strongly suggest you contact the United Nations and provide them with whatever you have scratched together. They will investigate and, if warranted, will set up an International War Crimes Tribunal. I'm confident justice will be done.
Just as a precaution, you may want to provide some affidavits. I'm sure you should be able to scrape together a few, given the bereaved family members no doubt left to mourn by the 150 million victims of Eisenhower's atrocities.
If, on the other hand, you have nothing to go on except the discredited wacko source you have cited, I suggest an apology to Eisenhower and his descendants is in order. For that purpose, I suggest you contact Stephen Harper - he's on an apology roll.
Tue, 2008-07-08 19:44
#9
quote:
I'm sure you should be able to scrape together a few
Hmm in Crimes and Mercies he was able to scrape up more than a few. And he isnt the only author to note the issue. Its been prevlent in european research for years.
Tue, 2008-07-08 19:52
#10
If you actually care about the kind of anti-Semitic neo-Nazi fan club that James Bacque inspires, you'll look at www. rense. com/general73/wiki.htm (I added spaces to avoid linking to an anti-Semitic holocaust denial site), article entitled:
"Wikipedia Zionists Attack Honest Historian James Bacque"
Needless to say, there are many other such sites which sing the praises of fiction-write James Bacque and simultaneously weep over the suppression of nice folk like Ernst Zundel, etc.
I'm serious, Bacchus - put forward your evidence, or stop slandering Eisenhower. His estate has deeper pockets than you, and I'm not above blowing the whistle.
Sat, 2008-08-02 21:51
#11
As I understand it, the initial stages of the Morgenthau Plan [i]were[/i] enacted in 1946 and 1947, but abandoned in late 1947 on pragmatic grounds and later because of the need to combat the Soviets.
Sun, 2008-08-03 09:55
#12
quote:
As I understand it, the initial stages of the Morgenthau Plan were enacted in 1946 and 1947, but abandoned in late 1947 on pragmatic grounds and later because of the need to combat the Soviets.
What is the Morgenthau Plan?
Sun, 2008-08-03 18:45
#13
It's not commonly talked of today, because the Marshall Plan has overshadowed it in the public consciousness and frankly, it IS a bit of an embarrassment to the cultural myth of the USA as a benevolent nation.
To give you a little back story, [url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,792411,00.html]TIME Magazine[/url] did a report summarizing his book. I don't really want to link solely to Wikipedia, but... [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgenthau,_Jr.]here's the entry on the fella himself[/url].
The actual details of the Morgenthau Plan seem to have evolved over time but the basic principle involved radically de-industrializing Germany on the grounds that its war-making potential would be permanently reduced.
The problem with that is both moral and pragmatic. On moral grounds you can't deny a basic standard of living to people - it's the same thing as telling Chinese people they shouldn't want to buy DVDs and cars, or even decent food. On pragmatic grounds, the caloric reductions demanded by forcing Germany into agricultural status would inevitably have meant food shortages and subsequent population deaths. For a modern example of how this has proven in practice, look at Iraq from 1991 to the present, under the US's version of a Morgenthau Plan for the Middle East.
Not very pleasant, is it?
[ 03 August 2008: Message edited by: DrConway ]
Sun, 2008-08-03 22:33
#14
Ayup, I've read some interesting things on William Krehm's site: [url=http://www.comer.org/]http://www.comer.org/[/url] Apparently the German situation for reparations to France and Belgium after WW I was made worse by a French military occupation of the Rhineland, an outbreak of civil war, striking workers demanding living wages, hyperinflation in Wiemar Republic etc.Sure the Germans could have done without the Kaiser and then Hitler, but European bankers made life pretty miserable for Germans in the 1920's. Keynes warned them not to extort such unfair reparations from the German people. According to several socialists and other opinions, the formerly Nazi-friendly Bank for International Settlements needs to go gently as well as the IMF, WTO etc. What the world needs is real democracy not debt slavery.
Euro socialists demanded that war profiteering industries be taxed hell out of in an attempt to prevent another war. Nobody listened. And our stoogeocrats today should be taxing hell out of warfiteering industries as if they were producing tobacco or greenhouse gases.
[ 03 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]